1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of printing systems and services. More specifically, the present invention relates to estimating the time required to perform a preflight process in a printing workflow.
2. State of the Art
Commercial printing typically includes high volume or specialized production of finished documents in a manual or electronic print shop. The printing process timeline typically includes a setup or compilation time period which is known in the art as “preflight” time. FIG. 1 illustrates a basic printing workflow 10 for a plurality of first print jobs 12 and a new or second print job 13 as employed, at least in part, in a typical print shop. The second print job 13 and its corresponding estimated second preflight time 27 are shown with dashed lines to distinguish them in time from the plurality of first print jobs and their corresponding measured first preflight times 25. As used herein, “workflow” includes the tasks, steps, procedures, information, tools and other resources needed to carry out a business process. Each of the plurality of first print jobs 12 and the second print job 13 comprise a plan or request (e.g., from a customer) to produce one or more finished documents 32. The printing workflow 10 includes document specification 14, preflight 16 and printing/finishing 18. Alternatively, one or more workflow 10 processes may be combined and additional processes may be added to produce the finished documents 32.
Document specification 14 typically includes identifying the desired content 20 (e.g., text, graphics, images, etc.) and organizing the content 20 or providing instructions 22 for how the content 20 is to be organized in the finished documents 32. The content 20 may be in hardcopy form, electronic form, or a combination of hardcopy and electronic documents that are to be combined in the final reproductions. For example, the content may include images in the form of processed photographs that are to be inserted into an electronic copy of a text document. With advances in desktop publishing technology, much of the content 20, as well as organization and individual page layout may be performed outside of the print shop. However, the content 20, organization and page layout produced by the desktop publishing technology and provided to the print shop may contain errors or be incompatible with the printing technology of the print shop. Further, for more complicated layouts and tasks, it may be necessary to provide layout instructions 22 to the print shop. Layout instructions 22 may include, by way of example, specifying the types and sizes of fonts for different parts of text, colors to be used in graphics, weight and size of media, page numbering or other annotations, general organization such as ordering individual text documents into chapters, and locations of graphics and images. The layout instructions 22 may specify finishing information such as the type of binding, cover specifications, number of folds, and protective coatings.
The layout instructions 22 may also include personalized printing instructions wherein each copy of the finished documents 32 is customized for its intended recipient. For example, a personalized printing campaign may include information unique to the intended recipient such as name, address, company logo or other graphical or copy elements tailored to the recipient. Thus, each copy may comprise static data that are the same in each finished document and variable data that are unique to the particular copy or subset of copies. Personalized printing instructions may also include static page layouts as well as variable page layouts that are customized for each intended recipient or group of recipients. Variable data may be selected from one or more electronic databases containing a plurality of records, each record comprising a plurality of data fields. The personalized printing instructions may include one or more rules that define database queries and specify the variable data to be used for each copy of the personalized printing campaign.
During document specification 14, a customer requesting a print job 12, 13 may indicate the number of finished documents 32 to be produced during printing/finishing 18. Printing/finishing 18 typically includes the processes necessary to produce the finished documents 32 once a final proof created during preflight 16 has been approved. The finished documents 32 may be created using output devices 30 such as a printing press, a high volume digital printer, a binding machine or any other imaging or finishing device known in the art. The finished documents 32 may include, by way of example, individually printed sheets, bound books, tabbed notebooks, folded brochures, color flyers or coated posters.
Upon receiving the print job 12, 13 request from a customer during document specification 14, the print shop may provide the customer with a cost estimate 24. The accuracy of the cost estimate 24 may largely depend upon the print shop's ability to predict the cost of preflight 16. Preflight 16 typically involves checking a document for errors and then preparing it for printing on a specific output device 30. The resources 26, including time, which the print shop requires to prepare the document for printing may depend upon the content 20 and layout instructions 22 provided by the customer to the print shop during document specification 14. For example, a customer may provide the print shop with a “print ready” file comprising content 20 in a form that may be sent directly to an output device 30, such as a digital printer. Thus, the print shop may expend only a short amount of time to check the file for errors during preflight 16 before passing it to the digital output device 30 for printing/finishing 18.
By contrast, a print shop may be required to expend substantial resources 26 to prepare a document for printing on a specific output device 30. For example, the content 20 provided by a customer may need to be combined and organized into page layouts. Source documents in hardcopy form may need to be scanned to create electronic documents while source documents in electronic form may need to be converted to another electronic file format in order to be edited or to be processed by the output device 30. During preflight 16, errors such as unwanted text or marks may need to be removed; pages may need to be added, shuffled or reversed; annotations such as headers, footers or page numbers may need to be added; graphics, images and fonts may need to be resized; margins may need to be adjusted to allow for bindings; colors may need to be added, changed or removed; and databases may need to be configured to define the number of records, the number of fields to be used per record, and query rules.
Print shops generally prefer to minimize the preflight time 25, 27, effort, and other resources 26 consumed during the preflight 16 of a print workflow process because preflight 16 is typically a cost center rather than a profit center. In other words, much of the actual costs of preparing documents during preflight 16 are not passed on to the print shop's customers directly. Part of the problem of passing preflight 16 costs to the customer is the difficulty of estimating the second preflight time 27 required to be added to preflight 16 for a new or second print job 13 as compared to the measured first preflight times 25 of a plurality of first print jobs 12. The amount of time 27, effort, and other resources 26 spent during preflight 16 of the plurality of first print jobs 12 may vary greatly.
Preflight 16 costs for the plurality of first print jobs 12 may also depend on the customer's sophistication and skills in designing and preparing the documents for print. For example, it is estimated that approximately 80% of a print shop's customers may provide a portion of the plurality of first print jobs 12 that require very little time 25 for preflight 16 while approximately 20% of its customers may provide a portion of the plurality of first print jobs 12 that require substantial amounts of time 25 to prepare. Due to the difficulty in estimating preflight times 25, the print shop may be required to either indiscriminately pass the costs generated by the 20% of its customers on to the other 80% or consistently exceed estimates by seeking billing approval from those customers (e.g., the 20%) whose portion of the plurality of first print jobs 12 require changes. Changes to text and layout while a document is in the preflight 16 stage is typically referred to as “author alterations” 28 and may cause delays in preflight 16. Author alterations may result from customer error and may require the customer to expend its own resources to correct the error. Further, it may be customary to make needed author alterations at the print shop without prior notification to the customer, which may cause surprise when the final billing statement is received.
In view of the shortcomings in the art, it would be advantageous to provide a method for estimating a second preflight time 27 corresponding to a new or second print job 13. An improved estimated second preflight time 27 would allow a print shop to better schedule its resources 26 and to provide its customers with more accurate cost estimates 24. An improved estimated second preflight time 27 may also allow a print shop to reward those customers which provide content 20 to the print shop in a form requiring little or no resources 26 to be spent during preflight 16. Further, the estimated second preflight time 27 may be shared with the print shop's customer as to help the customer streamline their own workflows and procedures.